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pecuniumThe "Right" likes to say the "Left" doesn't understand the troops. They like to say that they support the troops, and the left despise them.
So, it's interesting to see the sort of "understanding and support" Dave Rye (a news guy [TV and Radio] guy in Montana), has for the troops.
"Pardon my skepticism, and certainly no disrespect for the dead Montana soldier, but in my time in the Army I never heard such a word as "recalcitrant" escape the lips of any Staff Sergeant. I doubt if it’s spoken all that much in Ismay, either.
The soldiers had the help and probably the encouragement of a writer with an agenda, from a newspaper which has always had one. Its continually declining circulation now mainly consists of those who want desperately to consider themselves sophisticated as well as compassionate, even if that means always branding the U.S. as the chief villain on the world stage—-in fact, especially if it does."
The Grace Note on that little piece of insulting bile (as a SSG, let me say I've used words a lot less common than recalcitrant, in conversation no less, so in a piece of persuasive writing you can sure as shit imagine I'd use it) is that line at the front.
He could have made the accusation of the soldier being a dupe while SSG Gray was alive to respond. The Op-ed he's talking about came out weeks ago.
If I wanted to be tendentious I'd say Mr. Rye waited because he 1: is lying through his teeth, or 2: is a base coward who didn't want to deal with the response of the man he insulted.
But the insult is deeper than that. He's said soldiers, and soldiers in positions where life and death of subordinates, as well as the successful accomplishement of mission, are dumber than a box of rocks (he also said the residents of Red State Montana aren't too well educated either).
Me, I've known more than a few SSGs (and PVTs, for that matter) with more than a little education. Language both beautiful and scatolocigal has come from between their lips; often in the same tirade.
I await the Right's, justifiably outraged, denunciation of this loudmouth for his calumnation of this dead soldier; in specific, and the rest of the Army in general.
Forgive me if I don't hold my breath while I wait.
So, it's interesting to see the sort of "understanding and support" Dave Rye (a news guy [TV and Radio] guy in Montana), has for the troops.
"Pardon my skepticism, and certainly no disrespect for the dead Montana soldier, but in my time in the Army I never heard such a word as "recalcitrant" escape the lips of any Staff Sergeant. I doubt if it’s spoken all that much in Ismay, either.
The soldiers had the help and probably the encouragement of a writer with an agenda, from a newspaper which has always had one. Its continually declining circulation now mainly consists of those who want desperately to consider themselves sophisticated as well as compassionate, even if that means always branding the U.S. as the chief villain on the world stage—-in fact, especially if it does."
The Grace Note on that little piece of insulting bile (as a SSG, let me say I've used words a lot less common than recalcitrant, in conversation no less, so in a piece of persuasive writing you can sure as shit imagine I'd use it) is that line at the front.
He could have made the accusation of the soldier being a dupe while SSG Gray was alive to respond. The Op-ed he's talking about came out weeks ago.
If I wanted to be tendentious I'd say Mr. Rye waited because he 1: is lying through his teeth, or 2: is a base coward who didn't want to deal with the response of the man he insulted.
But the insult is deeper than that. He's said soldiers, and soldiers in positions where life and death of subordinates, as well as the successful accomplishement of mission, are dumber than a box of rocks (he also said the residents of Red State Montana aren't too well educated either).
Me, I've known more than a few SSGs (and PVTs, for that matter) with more than a little education. Language both beautiful and scatolocigal has come from between their lips; often in the same tirade.
I await the Right's, justifiably outraged, denunciation of this loudmouth for his calumnation of this dead soldier; in specific, and the rest of the Army in general.
Forgive me if I don't hold my breath while I wait.
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Date: 2007-09-18 04:51 am (UTC)I'm trying to take this a step further, but people much better than I have written reams about the role of anti-intellectualism in American life and its specific role in our current situation. Definitely a moment that I'll watch the big kids play. Thanks for reading and extracting this guy; I find my bile gets the better of me after a mere couple of sentences.
Crazy(and just maundering a bit with a brain only half-awake after one coffee, even with the attack of bile in her gut...)Soph
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Date: 2007-09-18 01:39 pm (UTC)"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.' The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "
IOW, they're projecting.